Ft. Atkinson Man Found Guilty of Scheming to Defraud the United States by Making False Claims for Tax Refunds

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 21, 2012

Contact: Peter Deegan

A man who submitted two false claims to the IRS seeking more than $100,000 in tax refunds, was convicted by a jury today after a three-day trial in federal court in Cedar Rapids.

Gene Jirak, age 42, from Ft. Atkinson, Iowa, was convicted of two counts of submitting false claims for tax refunds, one count of uttering a fraudulent treasury check, one count of mail fraud, and one count of aggravated identity theft. The verdict was returned this afternoon following about two hours of jury deliberations.

The evidence at trial showed that Jirak devised a scheme to defraud the United States by filing two tax returns claiming he was entitled in each return to a tax refund of more than $50,000. In support of these fraudulent tax refund claims, defendant claimed that financial institutions withheld taxes, submitting to the IRS fabricated tax documents purportedly issued by the financial institutions. Defendant filed the first fraudulent tax return as an amended joint tax return, and used his ex-wife’s name and Social Security number, and forged her signature, on the tax return without her knowledge or permission. In response to that first fraudulent tax return, the IRS issued a tax refund check in the amount of more than $69,000, made payable to defendant and his ex-wife. Defendant signed the back of the check, forged his ex-wife’s signature on the back of the check, and deposited it into his bank account.

Sentencing before United States District Court Chief Judge Linda R. Reade will be set after a presentence report is prepared. Jirak remains free on bond previously set pending sentencing. Jirak faces a mandatory minimum sentence of two years’ imprisonment and a possible maximum sentence of 42 years’ imprisonment, a $1 million fine, $500 in special assessments, and 13 years of supervised release following any imprisonment.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney C.J. Williams and was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service.

Court file information is available at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. The case file number is 11-CR-2041.